Emergency Rider Alert

To anyone riding routes 1, 16 or 25 and trying to get to the UCR/University Village area, these routes are currently detoured east of Chicago for road work. Call RTA at (800) 800-7821 for details and alternate stop locations.

Mobile Money Pits

That's what Streetsblog DC has called the ubiquitous automobile.

Speaking Gig

Tomorrow morning, I'll be speaking at the Friday Morning Club, at the Janet Goeske Senior Centre. It's located off of Sierra and Streeter (5257 Sierra, 92504), directly served by the 12 and a few blocks from the 1, 13 and 15 at Arlington and Magnolia. We'll be in room D from 10:00 AM to 11:30. The meeting is open to the public, so stop by if you can. I'll be speaking on the problems that cars cause in our world, and the solutions that a balanced transportation infrastructure can provide.

Seeking Contributors

Urbanists and livable streets advocates in the Inland Empire, I know you're out there. If you'd like to join the RiR efforts, maybe writing about what your neighbourhood/city gets right, or what it does horribly wrong, please e-mail me at ridinginriverside@gmail.com.

Also, I'm thinking about scheduling a bloggy meetup at my local watering hole. Comment if you'd come.

New Omni Bus Book Out

The new Omnitrans Bus Book is out, detailing the new schedules for the upcoming Sept. 7th service changes. The following routes are changed, and may have suffered from trip eliminations or frequency reductions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 19, 20, 22, 29, 61, 63, 66, 68, 80, 81, 82, 83 and 215. Also, the new OmniGo community shuttles have launched, routes 308, 309, 325 and 365. If you ride the bus at all in Omni territory, you should pick up a copy, because odds are your schedule has changed. You can pick them up on board, at Omnitrans' offices, or at your local library.

Also available, by the way, is the new RTA Ride Guide.

Crazy Irvine-Corona Tunnel Plans Shelved

For background, RCTC and OCTA were cooking up an 11.5-mile megatunnel under the Cleveland National Forest that would provide 104 feet of traffic right-of-way between Irvine and Corona, along with a tunnel for unspecified rail service. It was slated to connect to the future Mid-County Parkway in Riverside County, and the Eastern Corridor Toll Road in Orange County. Over the last several years, we've spent a little over $7m in federal grant money studying the project.

Well, the study is over, and the agency in charge of the project has voted unanimously to scrap it. Turns out that the cost of the tunnels would run at a spendy $28.3 bn- keep in mind, that's half of the cost of the entire state's high speed rail system. Also, the toll-increment financing method that the agency wanted to use proved untenable. (Personally, I also want to remind OC pols that the last time they tried to build a toll road and count on toll revenues, it didn't work out so well.)

The remaining $7.5 million in grant money can be spent on projects in the CA-91 corridor. I can only hope that that might include expanded Metrolink or bus (216 and 794) service through the canyon... but who am I kidding? This is Orange County. That's freeway money.

We Pay Councilmembers' Gas Bills

Apparently, back in 2007, our enlightened city leaders decided that Councilmembers would be entitled to the use of a city-owned vehicle, complete with city-paid insurance, maintenance, and even gasoline. For the last three years, we've been paying to subsidize the Council's travels, and there isn't even a restriction that they utilize these cars only for City business. The cost of this subsidy runs between $417 and $585 a month, depending on whether or not the driver is Councilman Steve Adams.

Even worse, though, Council salaries have included a $350 per month as long as I'm aware of.

In a city that has been touted as "California's first Emerald City", a city that is working on burnishing its green cred and building transportation alternatives, a city where every City employee is entitled to free transit service just by flashing their ID card (and I can only assume this extends to Councilmembers, as they are City employees)... why are we paying to subsidize the fossil fuelled transportation of our politicians?

I understand that the bus doesn't quite cut it for many of the meetings and business that Councilmembers must attend- distant board meetings and the like. Perhaps a City contract with ZipCar is in order, with City employees given certain allowances on their ZipCards for City business. (This would also help make downtown more livable by bringing ZipCar there.) But for most business, our politicians should enjoy the free transit service we give them, or they should pay for their driving out of their own pockets.